


Decay

by eckcro



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, I'll tag it just in case, Post TftBl, rhys has complicated feelings towards jack and idk if this counts as rhack or not?, so ppl can filter it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 10:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20794799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eckcro/pseuds/eckcro
Summary: Between meetings and sleep and calls with friends, Handsome Jack comes to him, taunting him with visions of what could have been, of what-ifs and if-onlys. There are so many points at which events could have diverged. Things didn’t have to turn out this way. Rhys could have made so many better choices. Even in death, Handsome Jack won’t die, like some of his code got stuck on the way out and has taken up permanent residence in Rhys’ brain.





	Decay

**Author's Note:**

> Found this sitting in my documents and decided to toss it up here. I actually wrote a few more pages but cut it all because the tone shift felt too jarring to me. I wish I had the stamina to write a multi-chapter fic for rhack, but tbh it's probably just gonna be this and maybe a few more oneshots if I get hit with a productive mood.
> 
> Come find me at twitter.com/eckcro or instagram.com/eckcro

Rhys thinks about him, most days. He can’t help it.

(He knows he shouldn’t, he definitely shouldn't. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t.)

Between meetings and sleep and calls with friends, Handsome Jack comes to him, taunting him with visions of what could have been, of what-ifs and if-onlys. There are so many points at which events could have diverged. Things didn’t _ have _ to turn out this way. Rhys could have made so many _ better choices. _ Even in death, Handsome Jack won’t die, like some of his code got stuck on the way out and has taken up permanent residence in Rhys’ brain.

It only gets worse from there (though it had never been better to begin with). Sometimes Rhys wakes in a cold sweat, sure that Handsome Jack is suffocating him, only to find himself facedown in his own pillow. Other times, he struggles out of a mass of sheets, pulling away the tangled knot around his neck. Once, his arm twitches on its own, and in a moment of irrational terror, he swears he can hear Jack speak.

(_“All I need is time! One day -- when you’re forgotten all about me -- I’ll take over your body and skin you alive with your own two hands.” _)

But how could he ever forget Handsome Jack?

(_“Hyperion, Pandora, Elpis… Oh ho ho ho ho ho, they are just the start. We’ll rule this entire freakin’ universe. You and me, kiddo! President Rhy and Handsome goddamned Jack!” _)

What if Rhys had just reasoned with Jack? Surely they could’ve used a body double instead. It would have been easy (he’s certain). If he’d only thought to suggest it, to stroke Handsome Jack’s ego, tell him he deserved to come back looking like himself. Sounding like himself. Recognizable. Beloved.

(And Rhys would have loved that too, wouldn’t he? It was just the thought of dying, of a terrifying metal abomination forcing itself into his body, that turned him off from the idea. If Jack had chosen a different vessel, would Rhys have really objected?)

(Rhys knows he would’ve jumped at the chance to sit beside the man he idolized.)

(Rhys is ashamed.)

(Deep down, he knows he can’t change how he felt (still feels), and that’s scarier than any metal endoskeleton.)

\-----

Rhys tries to focus on his work. And there’s so much work to be done. So much work to breathe life back into Atlas’ mangled corpse.

(He was the king of Hyperion, however briefly. He could have been again. But he wouldn’t be able to bear the sinking feeling that staying would inevitably bring. Linger with him. Follow him through the halls, hover over his shoulder as he planned meetings and took calls and looked down on his former superiors. Rhys wouldn’t be able to bear it. He knows he wouldn’t. So he doesn’t.)

No matter how hard he works, how fast he lives, Rhys can’t pull the last vestiges of Handsome Jack out. Even when he isn’t thinking about the man, his thoughts dance above Jack’s grave, trying to not invoke him directly but failing to avoid him nonetheless.

Of course, as soon as Rhys’ head hits his pillow, Jack swoops in, voice deep and authoritative and _ tempting _. It would be so easy. So, so easy. Rhys’ hands go to the thin string around his neck, thumbs the grotesque souvenir from what he wishes was all a bad dream. His fingers ghost across its surface, and for a second, Jack is with him, hands clutching Rhys’ and squeezing tight.

So Rhys tears off the necklace and buries it at the bottom of his nightstand drawer, the demon kept at bay again.

It’s not long before he finds that it’s easier, running himself ragged, downing shots of caffeine and never stopping to let the past catch up with him. It’s better, to lose himself in the mundane worries of finances and stocks and all the trappings of the corporate world. He owns a business now. Him. Rhys. Finally, on top.

(It’s still not purely his, it never will be. He’s a fool for deluding himself into thinking so.)

He smiles and shakes hands and signs papers. It’s easy to do. It becomes routine. Like a planet settling into orbit or a moon pulling on the tides. There’s a rhythm to it, one whose frustrations and disappointments he becomes intimately familiar with. Is this how _ he _ felt? Is this why _ he _started finding other ways (violent ways) of entertaining himself?

In truth it is quite a feat, how little Rhys is forced to acknowledge that he isn’t doing this for ambition’s sake. Sometimes it licks at his heels, the dreadful thought that this is all an attempt to wrestle back control from a phantom, a ghost in the machine. A whisper of times past and dead, gone and dust. But this is short-lived. Rhys knows by now that two painkillers and a splash of hard liquor is enough to quiet his mind.

\-----

Promethea is a far cry from Helios. The bustling metropolitan lifestyle, fancy cars, and bright neon storefronts help give Rhys the illusion of living in the real world. Of living somewhere free from the underhandedness, the traitorous, the lawless refuse that is Pandora.

(It birthed Jack, it birthed Jack, it birthed Jack.)

He can spend hours staring out the windows his penthouse suite. It turns the world fuzzy and distant, invoking a sense of unreality, of wishful fantasy. None of it has to be real, if he doesn’t want it to be.

(He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t.)

He shakes hands. He smiles. He signs papers. He attends meetings.

At some point, Rhys removed the cybernetic eye from his nightstand drawer. He can’t quite remember when, or why. Now he wears it around his neck. Handsome Jack sneers down at him from above the headboard. The watch on Rhys’ wrist is just like _ his _.

He refuses to talk about Handsome Jack, except in passing.

Does he remember Handsome Jack?

Yes, Helios was obsessed with him.

Did he ever meet Handsome Jack?

No, the man wasn’t one to rub shoulders with middle managers.

How does he feel about Handsome Jack?

A powerful but flawed business leader. (_ I should hate him. I do hate him. But not really, even though I’m so relieved that he’s dead. Except I wish he weren’t. Dead, that is. _)

(There isn’t anyone who would understand. Not Vaughn. Not Yvette. Only Jack. Jack would understand. Jack would.)

(Jack was right. Rhys is a hack, a fraud. The traitorous idea comes crawling into his mind like an earworm burrowing deep into his eardrum. It bangs against the inside of his skull, quiets only when the soft buzz of aged grapes hits his stomach.)

The changes help Rhys feel like he’s doing something, something to distance himself from the wannabe, the middle manager whose dreams still twine with blue through his veins. Silver is replaced by Atlas red. He wears his collar open and loose, tie askew and vest jacket perhaps not as fitted as he would once have preferred. This is the new Rhys. The Rhys who will be a good boss, a good man, a CEO not caught up in the same corporate scheming as his predecessors. He is friendly, approachable. A people person. A crowd-pleaser.

He shakes hands. He smiles. He signs papers. He attends meetings.

It becomes second nature to avoid the bad thoughts, conceal his true emotions from others. From himself. Pretend the ghost of Handsome Jack doesn’t haunt his dreams.

(But it’s not haunting, not always. Certainly, many of his dreams feature a murderous Jack, a powerless Rhys, but. But… but…)

(He tries not to think of it. He tries to scrub it from his mind. The shame, the guilt, the self-loathing.)

And it’s not as though he has anybody to talk to about it. They wouldn’t understand. Nobody would. Not Vaughn, not Fiona. Surely not. No, it’s best for Rhys to bottle it up, pretend it doesn’t exist. He can deny it right to the point when it reaches out and strangles him.

What a relief that will be.


End file.
